


eternal as the love I bear you

by ama



Category: The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Genre: Domestic Bliss, Getting Together, Late at Night, Love Confessions, M/M, Poetry, Tenderness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-21
Updated: 2018-05-21
Packaged: 2019-05-09 14:17:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14717696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ama/pseuds/ama
Summary: There is a passage from the legend of Immakuk and Ennikar often read at weddings. Kamet is asked to recite it at a wedding in Roa, but he shares it with Costis first.





	eternal as the love I bear you

**Author's Note:**

> I thought this fandom really needed yet another fic in which Kamet tells Costis about the EVEN GAYER Immakuk and Ennikar verses we all know are out there. This one sort of plagiarizes a line from the Song of Songs, because I'm just such a sucker for ancient Mesopotamian love poems.
> 
> I’m on tumblr at @whocalledhimannux.

“I met Autolycus on the way home,” Costis said one evening as he scaled and deboned fish for dinner.

Kamet didn’t answer at first, and Costis knew without looking that he was intently focused on the carrots. When they first arrived in Roa, Kamet had insisted on helping with dinner, but his skill with a cooking knife was just as lacking as his skill with a sword. Costis hadn’t been able to hide his laughter at the irregular chunks of vegetables he had produced at a painstakingly slow pace, and Kamet had been insulted. Ever since, he had been assiduous in producing perfect pieces, all the same size, so they would cook evenly in the pot.

“Oh?” he said finally, disinterested. Autolycus was a priest at the temple, and a particularly pompous one. Ordinarily, he was not the type of person Kamet wasted thought on in his free hours.

“He said that you would be giving a reading at his niece’s wedding in two weeks.”

“Yes.”

“He was very grateful.”

“So he told me himself.”

“Have you even met his niece?” Costis asked, amused.

He finished with the fish and turned around. Kamet was sitting at the kitchen table. He was moving quicker than Costis had thought; the carrots, in perfect half-rounds, sat in a neat pile beside him, and he picked up a turnip. Costis poured oil in their soup pot and set it on the fire.

“No,” Kamet said. “But there is a passage from the Immakuk and Ennikar tablets that Medes often read at weddings, and Autolycus is fond of it. He likes my translations best of any of the foreign scholars, so I agreed to read it for the couple. Besides, in a town this small, we would have been invited to the wedding anyway, and this saves us from bringing a gift.” He considered for a moment. “ _You_ might still need to bring a gift.”

“It’s about Ennikar and a maid, isn’t it?” Costis said with a grin, and Kamet paused halfway through a turnip.

“No,” he said slowly. “It’s not—the text itself is not about a wedding. The passage is from one of the last tablets, just before the events of the play we saw. They are getting old, and Immakuk thinks his wandering days are almost over. It’s about him asking Ennikar to join him in Ianna-Ir—a different kind of union. It was only in later years that people began to associate the text with marriage.”

“Will you recite it for me?”

“You’ll hear it at the wedding,” Kamet hedged.

“Here,” Costis said, holding out his hands. “I will peel the turnips and finish the soup, if you will tell me the poem.”

Kamet looked down at the vegetable in his hand. Turnips were tricky; he was slicing off half its weight. At that moment his stomach growled, and he sighed.

“Fine.”

He handed Costis the knife and the turnip. For a moment he closed his eyes and exhaled through his mouth. Then, reverently, he tapped three slender fingers of his right hand against his lower lip, a gesture Costis had never asked about but thought he understood anyway. In a soft, melodious voice, he began to recite the passage.

 

 

> Will you remain in Ianna-Ir  
>       with me  
>       and rule with me  
>  asked Immakuk of his friend Ennikar  
>  What have you to offer?  
>  asked Ennikar of his friend Immakuk
> 
> Much did Immakuk offer  
>       gold and silver and  
>       strong iron  
>       he offered to Proud Ennikar  
>  Not for gold or for silver or for strong iron  
>       will I remain said Ennikar  
>       iron rusts  
>       silver tarnishes  
>       gold bends breaks steals itself away  
>  What have you to offer?
> 
> Land I will offer  
>       said Immakuk the King  
>       the fruits of the land and the fruits of the vine  
>       the livestock that grazes  
>       and the sweet water of the rivers  
>  Not for land will I remain said Ennikar  
>       or for the fruits of the land or the vine  
>       or the livestock or the sweet water  
>  Know you not  
>       that crops burn in their fields and vines wither  
>       a plague takes the livestock  
>       and the cruel sun the water?  
>  What have you to offer?
> 
> All this said Immakuk  
>       will I offer:  
>       half my throne half my crown half my armies  
>       to my friend Ennikar  
>  Not even for this will I remain said Ennikar  
>       not for the armies or the crown or the throne  
>       the throne of Wise Immakuk  
>       the city Ianna-Ir with its gates  
>       of blessing open and well-minded
> 
> Ennikar refused them all  
>  and Immakuk despaired  
>       my beloved my friend cried he  
>       pleading fearing desiring  
>  I have displeased you so  
>  my gifts displease you so
> 
> My beloved my friend said Ennikar  
>       the gifts of the gods are  
>       temporary fleeting flying  
>  Nothing have you offered to me  
>  except that which the gods have gifted to you  
>  Offer me nothing so easily taken  
>       as the gifts of the gods are taken from men  
>  Offer me nothing  
>       except that which is  
>       as eternal as the love I bear you
> 
> And so Wise Immakuk offered only  
>       his hand grasping the hand of his friend  
>       and his voice raised in laughter joyous  
>       and a kiss on the face of his friend  
>  These gifts Faithful Ennikar accepted  
>  and he remained in Ianna-Ir

As Kamet spoke, Costis finished peeling and cutting the turnips and the leeks, and added them to the pot. He watched it carefully to make sure the vegetables didn’t brown, and added water and salt and a bundle of fresh herbs. The soup began to bubble and steam rose from the surface—the source, clearly, of the blush on his cheeks.

“It’s very beautiful,” he said simply when Kamet finished.

“Yes.” There was a pause. “It’s a very unusual tablet. Some scholars think it may have been adapted from a different myth, one since lost, because the personalities seem to be flipped. Usually Immakuk is the one making a philosophical point, and in this one it’s Ennikar. But of course, Immakuk is the king, and it’s _his_ city they go to, so it isn’t as simple as a scribe making an error in the names. That’s why some think it’s a different pair of heroes entirely, and that Immakuk and Ennikar were added later because they were more popular.”

“Or,” Costis said, “it could be that, in their old age, they grew more like each other. Perhaps Ennikar got a little wisdom of his own.”

“Perhaps,” Kamet admitted. The silence was very loud after his babbling, and he cleared his throat. “Is the soup almost ready?”

“I still need to add the fish.”

Costis did so, and watched as the grey, translucent meat became pearly white. Kamet cut them slices of bread, and Costis poured two generous bowlfuls of soup, and they sat down at the kitchen table to take their meal. Night had truly fallen, and their little house was lit only by a lamp and the cookfire. The days were getting shorter and cooler; Costis would need to patch some of the roof tiles and insulate the windows soon.

“Do they ever marry?” he asked idly. “In the tablets you know of?”

“No. Ennikar has his maids, and sometimes Immakuk, too, but no wives.”

“Ah.”

They finished the meal in relative silence, except for when Kamet finished his bowl and Costis stood and scooped him a second portion, and the smaller man accused him of trying to fatten him up like a witch in a Braeling fairy tale. Costis teased him in return, declaring that he was too small to make a meal and that even caggi had more meat on their bones. The strange tension that had settled over them evaporated, and when Kamet declared that he was going to bed soon after, Costis did not take it as a slight.

He did not retreat to his own bedroom so quickly, however. Instead he walked outside, out to the back of the house where he could feel the salt sea air on his face, even though they were not close enough to see the nearby cliffs. He looked up at the twinkling stars and the half-moon, and then to the southwest, where Attolia lay in the distance. Costis had never been outside of his home country before he was sent to the Mede Empire. He had missed it in a vague sort of way, but the sense of purpose that accompanied his mission had kept homesickness at bay. He hadn’t felt homesick at all in Roa. He thought of the first tablet, the one Kamet had recited from aboard the _Anet’s Dream_.

 _Wise Immakuk asked Proud Ennikar what he had learned_  
_Learned I like to wander said Ennikar_ _  
Wander with me then_

Unbidden, Costis’s feet turned and began to walk back to the house. He crossed the threshold, and in two steps was at Kamet’s door, knocking gently on the frame.

“Can I come in?” he asked.

There was a long pause before Kamet’s soft “yes” floated out from behind the door. Costis was breathing as if he’d run a mile instead of walking fifty feet from the backyard. The lamp in the main room was still lit, and when he opened the door and stepped into Kamet’s room it took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. The former slave did not sit up or light a lamp. He remained in bed, curled up on himself and facing the door.

Costis knelt by the bed and touched a hand to his shoulder.

“Kamet,” he said, beseeching, feeling him tremble.

Slowly, Kamet sat up. He turned so he was facing Costis and squinted at the darkness for a moment before taking a deep breath and closing his eyes. Costis lifted his right hand and rested it on Kamet’s cheek. His hand was shaking, too, and he drew in a sharp breath for courage as he leaned forward and touched his lips to Kamet’s other cheek. _A kiss on the face of his friend_. His skin was warm where his face had rested on the pillow.

Kamet’s teeth worried his lower lip for a moment. Hesitantly, he lifted his own hand and covered Costis’s with it. _His hand grasping the hand of his friend._

“Yes,” he rasped. “Yes.” And Costis couldn’t draw breath to laugh because then Kamet was kissing him, his other hand clutching the curls on the back of his head.

His mouth was demanding (wordlessly, for once), hot and wet, drawing him in, in tandem with the hand on his head pressing him forward. Costis needed to touch, too. His other hand came up to rest on Kamet’s knee, and then he realized that the tunic he wore to sleep was so short that he felt skin beneath his palm. He followed the warmth, pushing the tunic up to trace the muscles of Kamet’s thigh.

“Yes,” Kamet repeated breathlessly, breaking the kiss. “Yes, Costis—”

They moved as one. Kamet took Costis’s face in both hands and pulled him up for another kiss, and Costis rose in one fluid motion and pinned him down on the bed. Hours seemed to pass as they fumbled together in a tangle of desire that had no real purpose. He wanted desperately to feel Kamet bare beneath him, but could not pull away long enough to remove either of their clothes completely. He never wanted to stop kissing him, but the breathy moans produced when he buried his face in Kamet’s neck and sucked at the skin there were too good to pass up. He was hard, more aroused than he could remember being in his life, but the thought of climaxing and ending this desperate press of limbs and lips was unbearable.

Eventually, he gave in and wrapped his hand around Kamet’s cock, because Kamet asked him to. It took very little for either of them to come, and only then did they shed the last of their clothing. Kamet used his tunic to clean them and then demanded that Costis strip, too. The lazy luxury of bare skin was just as wonderful in its own way. For a while afterwards they continued to trade soft, slow kisses, but sleep tugged at them.

Costis lay on his back with Kamet’s head pillowed on his shoulder, his eyes drifting shut.

“Costis?” Kamet whispered in the darkness.

 _My beloved, my friend_ , he thought. Embarrassed to give away so much so soon, he only made a quiet “hm?” noise.

“Is this…” He trailed off, and propped himself up on one elbow. “This isn’t all, is it? Not that this isn’t—wonderful—but—” He took a deep breath, and Costis felt his fingers on his cheek. “I want you in the light, too.”

Costis wrapped his hand around Kamet’s wrist and kissed his palm.

“I love you,” he said simply.

“Oh.”

“And I’m a stupid fellow who doesn’t know how to lie,” he said, yawning. “I will love you in the dark and the light, just the same.”

Kamet laid down again, his ear pressed to Costis’s chest where he could hear his heartbeat.

“Are there unions between men in Attolia?” he asked. “Oaths to take, passages to read?”

“No,” Costis replied. He thought. “Nothing so formal, at least.”

“Nor in Mede. We will have to make some for our own, when we go home.”

 _Home_ , he said. Costis didn’t know whether he wanted to laugh or cry for joy. He had already said _I love you_ twice in the past minute, so he tightened his arm around Kamet’s shoulder and kissed the top of his head.

“It is good we have so many verses to choose from.”

“So.”


End file.
